US official visits Pakistan in apparent effort to encourage Islamabad to host more peace talks

ISLAMABAD – A U.S. official is visiting Pakistan in an apparent effort to encourage Islamabad to host more peace talks between representatives of the Afghan government and the Taliban.

According to a foreign ministry statement, the U.S. acting special representative on Afghanistan and Pakistan, Laurel Miller, met Wednesday with the Pakistani prime minister's special assistant on foreign affairs, Tariq Fatemi. The statement said she praised Islamabad's role in promoting "peace and stability" in neighboring Afghanistan.

It says Fatemi informed Miller about Pakistan's contribution toward facilitating an "Afghan-led and Afghan-owned reconciliation process." It provided no further details.

In July, Pakistan hosted landmark talks between Afghan officials and the Taliban, but a second round was postponed after Kabul revealed that Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar had died in a Pakistani hospital two years earlier.